Private hospital doctors in protest mode, to skip OPDs today

Doctors of private-sector hospitals in the city, pushed to the wall by repeated incidents of violence and hooliganism at their workplace, are going for a first-of-its-kind, multi-hospital protest that resembles doctors’ strikes in government-sector hospitals.TNN | August 26, 2017, 09:07 IST

Kolkata: Doctors of private-sector hospitals in the city, pushed to the wall by repeated incidents of violence and hooliganism at their workplace, are going for a first-of-its-kind, multi-hospital protest that resembles doctors’ strikes in government-sector hospitals.

Doctors on Friday formed a body called the United Doctors’ Voice of Bengal, which called for an OPD closure in all private hospitals and nursing homes on Saturday. Members of the body will meet on Saturday to decide how to take forward their movement which, they admit, is still at a nascent stage.

The immediate trigger was a case of “extortion” at CMRI on Thursday, when a patient’s kin refused to pay more than Rs 8,000 after being given a Rs-75,000 bill. “This bill was really conservative, considering the fact that the patient stayed at the hospital for 20 days and underwent a complicated surgery,” a senior physician said on Friday. The patient’s relatives brought in goons, who abused and threatened doctors and administrative staff inside the hospital, the doctor said.

CMRI doctors then decided not to treat any new patient, effectively blocking new admissions in the hospital. On Friday, doctors of two other private hospitals — Kothari Medical Centre and B M Birla Heart Research Centre — decided that they needed to “express solidarity” with their colleagues. “We have decided not to operate the outpatients’ departments on Saturday,” a Kothari doctor said. The administrations of all three hospitals endorsed the doctors’ stand.

Scores of senior consultants of several other major private hospitals, including AMRI, Medica, Fortis, R N Tagore, Belle Vue and Woodlands, said they too would not work “at least on Saturday”.

Admissions stayed suspended at CMRI Hospital for the second successive day on Friday, with a long meeting between police and doctors’ representatives failing to break the impasse. A statement issued by CMRI doctors said they were “suffering from deep anxiety as, despite providing evidence to the police, the latter have not taken any action”.

On Saturday, the doctors will meet at 11am at Kothari Medical Centre to decide on how to take their movement forward, a representative of the new doctors’ association told TOI.

The CMRI administration endorsed the doctors’ move and said they “stood in solidarity with them”. “We express our gratitude to doctors. The unruly behaviour meted out to doctors and administrative staff by some anti-social elements is worrying and unacceptable. We express our gratitude to the doctors and stand in solidarity with them. We have full faith in the administrative machinery and are hopeful that the guilty will be brought to justice soon,” C K Birla Hospitals CEO Uttam Bose said.

The CMRI authorities, however, maintained that treatment of all patients who were admitted before Thursday was on course. Procedures, too, were being done on schedule and emergency patients were still being admitted.

“Doctors are worried about patient care and want to resume activities at the earliest and are monitoring the progress of the police probe on an hourly basis. All categories of CMRI staff have expressed their solidarity with the medical staff,” the statement added.

Hundreds of patients from the area and from various parts of South 24 Parganas returned disappointed from the hospital on Friday. Tollygunge resident Aritra Sinha was asked to return next week for a procedure he was scheduled to undergo at the hospital on Saturday. “I had no idea they had stopped admissions. Now, I have no choice but to wait for three more days,” said Sinha.

Several doctors from Medica Superspecialty Hospital and AMRI, too, said they would join the stir. “As doctors, we sacrifice a lot for patients. We do not deserve threats, abuses and assault in return. The OPD shutdown call for Saturday has been taken after consulting doctors across hospitals and organisations to show solidarity with colleagues at CMRI and I will be playing my part,” Medica cardiac surgeon Binayak Chanda said.

“CEOs of all private hospitals in the city have been informed about this decision. I am sure, like me, a large number of doctors will respond to this call,” AMRI Hospital, Salt Lake, oncologist Saradwat Mukherjee said.

The police said an FIR was registered based on a complaint from CMRI. A case has been lodged under various sections of extortion, cheating and threat; two of the sections are non-bailable. CMRI has been assured by the police on Friday that raids were on in search of those who threatened doctors on Thursday.